Trump strikes back at Pelosi, pulling the plug on her overseas trip

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, at a news conference Thursday on Capitol Hill, had planned a trip to Egypt, Afghanistan and Brussels. (Carolyn Kaster / Associated Press)

President Trump is postponing what he's calling House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's “seven-day excursion” to Egypt, Afghanistan and Brussels in apparent payback for asking him to reschedule his State of the Union speech because of the partial government shutdown.

Trump wrote a letter to Pelosi on Thursday informing her that her trip had been postponed and would be rescheduled after the shutdown.

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He called Pelosi's trip a “public relations event.”

He says she should stay in Washington to negotiate ways to end the shutdown; lawmakers are at a stalemate over federal funding for Trump’s desired border wall. Trump says that if she wants to make her trip by flying commercial, that would “certainly be your prerogative.”

Pelosi said the trip Trump was canceling was intended to express appreciation to U.S. troops and reaffirm the United States’ “ironclad commitment” to the NATO alliance.

Trump wrote Pelosi and said he was denying military aircraft for a trip to Egypt, Brussels and Afghanistan amid the government shutdown.

Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill tweeted that the previously unannounced trip was to Afghanistan, including a stop in Brussels. He said it did not include a stop in Egypt.

Hammill said Pelosi was to meet with top NATO commanders and troops and “obtain critical national security & intelligence briefings from those on the front lines.”